Equilibrium
by thermodynamic
Summary: In the weeks before Soda deploys, tensions between him and Ponyboy come to a head.


… I know Soda and Ponyboy have a heartwarmingly close relationship in canon. But I've wanted to make these two have a go at each other for _so_ long, y'all have no idea.

* * *

You told Darry you were quitting months ago; he's never much liked smoking, too proud of his athletic skill, another way he's stricter than either of your parents managed to be. You have enough respect for his rules to wait until he's gone to light up; the air is faintly muggy and cold as you step outside, you'll be able to see your breath when you exhale in another month, maybe. When you flick your lighter to life, you try to forget all the reasons why you can't resist wrecking your lungs.

The first inhale is always a relief, the nicotine a soothing balm for your jagged nerves, spreads all over them like you injected it. The first exhale just makes you cough. You roll your eyes every time you see the car on the front lawn Soda's trying to fix up, his pet project, and tonight is no exception; that thing is his damn baby. It's only when you notice it shouldn't be rocking back and forth before anger jumps straight into the hollow of your throat.

"_Hey,_" you holler loud enough to carry; Soda jumps up like a jack-in-the-box, gets his hand out from underneath the girl's skirt. When she sits up too—

Jesus _Christ,_ he's fooling around with Tim's ex now? Everyone on the east side knows Bonnie cheated on him with some Brumly kid a couple years back, his standards really must've crashed through the floor since Sandy went to Florida. She doesn't even have the good grace to look embarrassed, just shoves her tits back inside her tube top and glares at you. For a girl who's barely over five feet, she can be as intimidating as a wildebeest when she wants.

"What y'all doin', huh?" You sound like your mama, ready to start citing Bible verses against premarital sex, and worst of all, you don't much care. "Get outta there, you want Darry to catch you?"

Soda throws open the door with exaggerated good humor, even puts his hands up like a cop's got the barrel of a gun to his back. "All right, all right, Pastor Ponyboy, we're steppin' _out_ of the vehicle—"

Pastor Ponyboy— Steve came up with that one, sometime last summer. Soda used to tell him to cut it out, when he heard it.

"I'm gonna head home." Bonnie smooths her miniskirt back over her thighs, pulls a compact out of nowhere and starts examining the foundation caked around her nose. You have to hand it to her, she doesn't lose her composure easily. "Hate to say it, but the mood's deader than Kennedy in Dealey Plaza."

"I'll see you, right?"

She fluffs her tousled dark hair, keeps looking at you like you're the Antichrist. "You'll see me," she says coolly. "Just make sure your kid brother ain't around next time."

You don't know where she's headed, but she stalks off into the early evening darkness, leaving the two of you to face each other. "You're always around." Soda climbs onto the porch, shifts uncomfortably. "Look, Pone… I used to make Steve tell you, I guess I didn't have the balls. But that wasn't cool. She probably would've let me score if you hadn't strolled up here—"

"It ain't my fault." You light cigarette number two. "You know what you're doin' is wrong."

"Yeah?" Soda tries to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear and fails, starts laughing at himself when he can't reach the target. "What's the problem, then?"

Drunk on just plain living. _Right. _

"You're really gonna be fucking girls on the front lawn now, huh?"

Soda tilts his head to the side, gives you that Robert Redford grin, but it seems a hell of a lot less charming and a lot more manipulative now. "She was plenty willin', trust me— again, what's the problem?"

You should let it go. It's the nicotine that's got you on edge, your heart pounding against the walls of your chest— but self-awareness doesn't mean that you want to stop your mouth in its tracks. "You know what Darry would do if he caught me slippin' some broad's panties down in that Cadillac? He'd ground me until the New Year, that's what."

Soda laughs, because everything's a fucking joke to him. School, your family, even joining the army. "Okay, I figured out what your problem is— you just need to get laid, honey, it'll loosen you up. I taught you right 'bout Angel Shepard, don't stick your dick in crazy, but I got some friends' kid sisters—"

"That's not the point."

Your brother, he knows how to get nasty. He's got enough easy smiles and good manners to hide it, but beneath that layer of southern charm, he inherited your daddy's bad temper and your mama's sharp tongue— it's not the best combination. "Oh, come on, this ain't cute anymore, even for you," he says with a loud blast of another laugh, the beer on his breath palpable. "You a queer or somethin', that what this is about—"

As petty and spiteful as Soda can be, he's just throwing around cheap insults, but your scalp tingles like you've had hot wax poured over it. "Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up already." The vitriol in your voice shocks you, you can't believe you said that to the brother you hero-worshipped your entire life. "This ain't about your sex life, or mine. Maybe it's about how you're Darry's favorite."

Soda doesn't even try to deny it; he narrows his eyes like a cat about to strike on a sparrow. "I didn't exactly apply for the position, you know? I didn't ask to be older than you, _baby_—"

It's the _baby_ that makes you go in for the kill; you desperately want to stop before you say something you can't take back, but the brakes on your mouth are broken, there's too much nervous energy waiting to be released. "You never exactly did much to stop him, did you, just always said I should try to get along better with him— maybe because things ended up a lot better for _you_, with me as a fall guy. No matter what you got up to, I'm always around to soften the blow, huh?"

"Stop talkin' like some bratty kid, you ain't fourteen no more." Soda can hit where it hurts as good as you do; you all spent too much time in your mama's presence, and she could play smashball with your id like nobody's business. "You really think this is the biggest problem we got right now? Darry wasn't fair enough with you when we was younger? He was twenty, he didn't know what the hell he was doin'—"

"Right, like I expected you to care, when you're the one who always ends up on top." He's like your daddy that way, practicing selective ignorance; even by twelve, thirteen, you'd learned to look down on that. "You was his golden boy— you could join a gang, sell car parts with Tiber, get fifty dollar speeding tickets, nothing mattered to him. Even when you dropped out of school, he just slapped you on the back and said it was all fine, didn't he?" You kick at the boards on the porch. "I'm fucking sick of it. I didn't do nothin' to deserve this, 'cept that you two was always Dad's buddies together."

While you and Jasmine were stuck in your mama's kitchen— or, _you_ weren't calling it 'stuck'. Jasmine had wanted to be one of the boys, wrestling in the den, going on hunting trips; you'd been content with a book propped up against the mixing bowl, close to her. It's only lately that you've felt the lack, searching your memories of him and coming back up empty-handed. Wondering if he knew, suspected—

"You're always bitchin' about how hard Darry is on you, how he wants you to get good grades, get a track scholarship, all that shit," Soda hisses into your ear, a scorpion ready to sting. You've never been able to look away from him. "While I get to do whatever the hell I want. You know why it's like that, Pone, you ever stopped to think for a hot minute with that big brain of yours?" He slaps you upside the head then, in a way that seems more suited to Tim and Curly than to the two of you. "Because you're gonna make somethin' of yourself— he just sees me as cannon fodder. Same way Mom always did."

You're not the kind of brothers who take swings at each other, but you're tempted after hearing him insult your mama. "You're not cannon fodder, you're just too scared to try."

"Yeah, well, I took the ASVAB, turns out I'm a bona fide retard after all." He grabs a cigarette from your pack without bothering to ask, snatches your lighter from between your fingers too and lights up. "It's the infantry for me, baby. I'll be bringing down the IQ of the whole division, by the looks of it."

"Fine." You bite down on your hangnail and pull with your teeth until it bleeds— like that little splotch can be even considered blood, compared to what Soda's going to be seeing in Nam. "You go ahead and fight a war of aggression—"

"Don't make me listen to that hippie bullshit 'bout them poor Vietnamese farmers, come on," Soda says. "I joined 'cause my life's one big dead end. At least if I come back alive, I'll have a GI Bill, army benefits for whatever lucky lady gets to become Mrs. Curtis."

He gives and gives and gives, that's Soda Curtis for you. You want to talk some more about this commune you've been hanging with in the park, where they paint butterflies on people's faces and drop acid and gently, very gently, discuss how the war is American imperialism at its finest, but his dark eyes bore into you and you lose the idea. "You promise you're gonna come back?"

"I dunno." Soda stubs his smoke out on the railing, sending a couple sparks flying onto the lawn, then stomps on it with the heel of his boot. "Just stop— just stop actin' like a kid, like a kid I gotta protect from the truth for once, okay? I don't know, I don't wanna think about it. I'll try."

You wrap your arms around his waist, too tight— he smells of your daddy's cologne, that same vanishing scent. "I'll miss the hell outta you," you say, your anger melting like a popsicle in the summer sun. With Soda, you can't front anymore.

You were wrong. Being pissed at him, it won't make it easier to let him go— you don't know what the fuck you're gonna do without him, with just Darry nagging at you, Jasmine as distant and aloof as ever. The two of you shared a bed after your parents died, curled up together, closer than brothers. Closer than anything.

"Listen, while I'm gone—" He twists a hand up in your hair. "You gotta grow up, honey, you're gonna have to. Swear I'm gonna step on a landmine worrying if you and Darry can't get along without me. Or if Jasmine's clawed your forehead open again."

You start, painfully, unexpectedly, to cry, and at the same time, pull back and slam your fist into the middle of his chest. "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you," you get out in a strangled sob, "why would you _volunteer, _haven't we lost enough people already—"

"It's just a twelve-month tour," he tries to tell you in a soft, shushing voice, his earlier hostility gone. "Nothing's gonna change. I'm not gonna come home any different."

He's reverted back to his usual MO. Lying to you.


End file.
